A peep into Finland’s terrific bunkers designed to save citizens from air raids

During a stop at Malmi Comprehensive School on Talveltie Street in Helsinki, I saw the magnificent, all-round education system of Finland on display. Elsewhere, I explored a patch of the country’s vast “magical” forests, savoured memorable moments in a sauna – Finland’s iconic traditional steam bath chamber – and dipped myself in one of the Nordic country’s 188,000 lakes.

After all of these in two days, I concluded that nothing else could beat my imagination in the remaining days I was going to spend in Helsinki, the capital of this vastly forested country in the north of Europe. What was
left to be seen in the capital city of over 670,000 people, I imagined, was going to be the usual expected in an advanced democracy and economy on the cutting edge of technology.

As we stepped out of our bus in Merihaka, a residential area in central Helsinki, on Thursday (23 May), my eyes quickly caught a man with an expressionless face, and a woman lavishly smiling towards us. Both were resplendently dressed in their dark uniform, with the man setting his glasses on his forehead.

After two days, Tuesday and Wednesday (21 and 22 May) in Helsinki, I was already wondering why I had not seen uniformed men and women. I finally saw two police officers, I thought, and I was going to ask why this place was so important to have two of them in one spot.

But I was wrong. Our guide from the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, leading 10 of us – all journalists from nine African countries and the United Arab Emirate – on a tour of strategic institutions and places that underpin Finland’s profoundly organised and enviably democratic society told me they were civil defence department officers who were there to guide us through their operations.

After the usual exchange of pleasantries and introductions, we were beckoned into a small transparent structure that I thought was a bus stop.
This must be a spot where they waited in the wings for the next operations, I said to myself. I was not surprised when I saw a staircase leading downwards. I guessed it would lead us to one floor below the street level where we would find seats to have an hour’s conversation around civil defence in Helsinki and broadly in Finland. But we kept descending the zigzag staircase into what had started looking like a bottomless abyss to me.
After the fourth level, I was forced to ask how many more to go but got no answer.

The surprise below

Nothing gave away the surprise below as we were being led down the silver painted metallic staircase with a grid tread.

By the time we reached the ground level, we had descended over 20 metres below Helsinki.

It was a sprawling space ingeniously gouged out of the hard bedrock of the city.

The bunker is large enough to shelter 6,000 people during wartime. The well-lit facility has a labyrinth of hallways connecting expansive space that is divided into smaller shelter rooms during emergencies.

It is designed to protect people from blasts, air raids and other weaponry effects. It is built in such a way that it can withstand the collapse of a building. It can be closed airtight. It has a ventilation system. It filters toxic gases and radioactive substances, in preparation for the worst forms of attacks. It has its power supply.

Tomi Rask, a civil defence instructor, who together with his colleague Nina Jarvenkyla conducted us through the shelter, told us the facility cost the Finnish government 70 million Finnish markkas (about 16 million
euro) to build in 2003.

Thousands of bunkers in Finland

The Merihaka civil defence shelter is only one of the 50,500 bunkers hollowed out under apartment buildings, factories, and public places scattered around Finland.

Most of the civil defence shelters are “private, reinforced concrete shelters in individual buildings,” a publication of the Finnish Ministry of the Interior says.

Altogether, the bunkers provide spaces for about 4.8 million out of the country’s 5.6 million population. The Finnish government believes this number is enough because not everyone would need to go to a civil defence shelter in case of emergency; there are arrangements for evacuating people to other areas in certain situations.

By law, any building or a group of them on the same plot with a floor area of at least 1,200 metre-square and is used as a permanent dwelling or workplace or otherwise permanently occupied must have a civil defence
shelter.

As such, 4.8 million people can access the shelters within 10 minutes from their locations around Finland.

Key learning from history

The Finns are wired to prepare for the worst disasters.

At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, while other nations including the United States were scrambling for scarce nose masks to keep their citizens safe, Finland simply tapped into its stockpile of personal
protective equipment like surgical masks, which it started amassing since World War II.

Finland’s prepper orientation is a product of the reality of its location on the world map and learning from history.

The country has been in the crosshairs of its powerful neighbours, which saw it as nothing more than a conquest for grabs for over 750 years. Russia with which Finland shares its longest borders, is to its east, and Sweden is to its west. Its other immediate neighbour is Norway to its north.

In the middle of the 12th Century, Sweden appropriated Finland and held it for over 650 years. Then in 1808, Russia wrested it from Sweden and held it until 1917 when it gained independence.

Shortly after its independence, the sorely divided and fragile Finland broke into a civil war which lasted for some months in early 1918.

About two decades later, the Soviet Union attempted to conquer Finland again during World War II between 1939 and 1945. Finland fought tooth and nail to remain independent.

Since then, Finns knew they were not likely to be safe again, so they started building bunkers for self-defence.

They built most of the bunkers after the Rescue Act came into force in 1971.

The nation has not had any cause to use its underground shelters for wartime protection since the 1940s but has continued to build more, nevertheless.

Municipalities in Finland have also built public defence shelters until 2011 when it was decided that Finland had got enough.

“We know where we are on the map; we know what we need to know. We know the capabilities of our neighbours,” Mr Rask said, referring to superpower Russia.

“We have been learning since previous years, so we know we need to protect our citizens.”

He said nuclear or biological attacks on Finland are unlikely based on the Finnish government’s regular threat assessment, yet defence systems against such attacks are built into the underground shelters.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Finland joined NATO, the intergovernmental military alliance of 32 member states, on 4 April 2023, adding another layer of protection to its comprehensive security plan.

Mr Rask said Finland’s bunkers are part of its contributions to NATO.

Although there is no imminent threat to Finland from Russia, Mr Rask said it remains in Finland’s “foreseeable future” based on Finnish authorities’ regular threat assessments.

Such attacks may never happen, the civil defence instructor said. However, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in early 2022 has reinforced “public thinking that we need this system.”

Beyond first three citizens

I asked Mr Rask if he was aware of anything that compared with Finland’s extensive underground bunkers to protect a mass of citizens in other countries.

He sighed and said, “Every country in the world has some form of protection like this for the first two or three citizens to guarantee continuance of government. But in Finland, we think that our country is our people.”

The bunkers are an example of how well the underground has been put to astonishing use in a nation that does not fancy skyscrapers. “It takes less energy to heat up a building that extends horizontally than the ones that
extend vertically upwards,” Mr Rask said.

What the Finns miss in the mesmerising skyscrapers of New York, for instance, they compensate for it underground.

How to shelter in bunkers

The Finnish government hopes that it will have three days to prepare public and private bunkers for sheltering citizens ahead of major attacks.

It also envisages that people would only have to shelter for between hours and three days.

There is no free food or hotel treatment during sheltering.

The people are advised to go into shelters with their food and medications that they would need theoretically for three days. There could be an extension of the sheltering beyond three days depending on the nature of the circumstances.

The sheltering population is divided into three, with each getting three eight-hour shifts. While one group is sleeping, another is working and the third is having their spare time.

Pets, alcohol, smoking, and guns are not allowed in the shelters.

Shelter during wartime, recreational centre during peacetime

The beauty of the bunkers is that they are not useless in peacetime.

Mr Rask showed us gyms, mini football pitches, children’s paradise and stores that are put in place at various shelter spaces by entrepreneurs who have rented different parts of the facility during peacetime. A huge sheltering space in the facility currently serves as a paid car park.

I also learnt that the Finnish metro, constructed deep in the bedrock of Finland, was designed to serve as bunkers during wartime.

Some private bunkers are also used for storage.

These borrowed uses must give way within three days to serve as civil defence shelters during wartime.

Our visit to the Merihaka civil defence shelter on Thursday coincided with a bout of maintenance being carried out on the facility.

We saw whirring machines being used for cleaning the ventilation systems. So, Finns do not wait until they start hearing the drumbeats of war before carrying out necessary maintenance on the shelters.

Asked how much was being earned from the rentals, Mr Rask said he was not interested in the money. But he believes the rents are enough to maintain the facilities which are kept clean and ready for use within 72 hours.

He said everything brought into the facilities by the renters are lightweight.

He also showed us a section with carefully arranged chairs where Finnish decision-makers, including lawmakers, are periodically taken through the civil defence system available in the country.

READ ALSO: TRAVELOGUE: Ode to Serowe, world-famous village in Southern Africa’s oasis of peace

I come from a country struggling to run its tarpaulin camps for thousands of internally displaced persons in the Boko Haram war-ravaged parts of northeastern Nigeria. A nation that still cannot keep its school children safe from kidnappers and that cannot keep farmers and the rest of the citizenry safe from terrorists. It has yet to find a solution to flooding that sweeps away human lives and their fortunes almost annually. So, the shelter that I saw was a wonder.

It demonstrates the extent a government, where it functions efficiently, can go to help its citizens. It goes beyond bunkers. It’s more about how Finland has learnt from its history, cultivated the culture of inventing practical solutions to its peculiar problems, judiciously used its resources, and ultimately made the people the primary focus of governance.